Brainstorm Cafe

“I have a foreboding of an America in my Children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and the nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slid, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentation on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” Carl Sagan 1995

I slept in this morning past the 5:30 and 6:00 am alarm clock blaring the song “alive” by P.O.D. as I look at the swirl of all the stuff and people around me, and because of experience, I don’t really get pissed or angry anymore. now the swirl of a startup (another’s) is a bit normal. years, ago, had I known now what I know about starting things up and helping people – would I still have done it? the answer is probably yes. what I don’t think people realize is that there is a far more that has to happen than sitting around and chatting about ideas and thoughts, making a spiffy presentation and getting a phone line installed (why do we even do that these days?”)

but this is the reality of our country – you have a lot of people fighting for cash and profits as a tipping point was had in 2007, of which I don’t think too many people spent time thinking about the ramifications of simply putting another economic layer over the mess that was with mortgages. it has just been shifted a bit to cars and student loans.

what does this all have to do with the price of tea in china? it is simple. the world, whether we want to admit it or not is simply a complicated global enterprise that is comprised of 200 nation states that all see how life should be in a slightly different mode or way. call it cultural, political, religious, monetary, events, and any other historical path of power that influenced the way it thinks, acts, and makes laws.

you can see the people being replaced in the country by machines. I don’t think too many are aware, nor the lower level management that is in charge of putting these systems together. at this time, they are not the best versions of what will be here, rather, simplistic robots that do the work and annoy humans as the humans that programmed them are waiting for technology to catch up to the ideas of the few who control the data.

meanwhile, we have designed a full, off the grid systems that can actually allow you as a family or community to grow and bring your self-sufficiency in healthy eating and perhaps living into reality while much of the planet scurries into urban environments. I have run some loose numbers, but the truth is that only the super wealthy can and will be able to afford such a space because of the simple cost of a square ft. or meter of land in the urban areas.

maybe that is why I shake my head in amazement. as with robotics, you can be and live anywhere on the planet, and function with the planet – on the grid, off of it.

many times, it feels like you are alone on the top of a roof screaming, “folks, wake up…stop staring into your mobiles or thinking that life has no pain in it…something far more sinister is coming our way if we all don’t wake up.”

that is the reality of the demon –haunted world carl Sagan wrote about – on a massive dose of growth hormones. are the tools made man inherently evil or bad? no. it is a choice for how we use them - the problem will be that the speed of which change happens will be at a rate where no human can keep up.

care to join me for a coffee?

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." ~ Cyril Connolly

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